CDO resumes: 5 tips for landing a chief data officer role

As companies start to adapt data-first strategies, the role of chief data officer is becoming increasingly important, especially as businesses seek to capitalize on data to gain a competitive advantage. A role historically focused on data governance and compliance, the scope of responsibilities for CDOs has since grown, pushing them to become strategic business leaders, according to data from IDC.

According to the survey, 80% of the top KPIs that CDOs report focusing on are business oriented. The top five KPIs for CDOs include operational efficiency, data privacy and protection, productivity and capacity, innovation and revenue, and customer satisfaction and success. And 87% of CXOs said that “becoming a more intelligent enterprise is their top priority by 2025,” with 52% of CDOs reporting to a business leader.

If you’re looking to embark on an executive career as a CDO, you’ll need a strong resume. But you don’t need to feel intimidated when writing your executive-level CV; you just need to do a little research. Here are tips from technology resume experts on how to write the ideal resume for chief data officer positions, along with one shining example.

Data has become a top priority for businesses large and small, and while some companies have already established a digital strategy, many of them are just getting started. As CDO you’ll likely be tasked with some type of digital or data transformation, whether it’s a complete overall of a company’s data practices, or helping a company improve or advance their data strategy to the next level.

“When preparing a resume for CDO roles, each candidate must consider their audience, as different companies include a range of duties into each role. However, the ability to drive digital technology transformation is going to be the focus,” says Stephen Van Vreede, resume expert at IT Tech Exec.

To demonstrate your ability to lead data transformations, you’ll want to highlight relevant skills such as business strategy, strategic planning, business operations, data governance, goal alignment, data security, data sourcing, technology roadmap development, change management, communication, and team leadership.

Look to job listings to help you find a focus or theme for your resume. Some positions will focus more heavily on security or emerging technology, while others will focus more on data and analytics. For CDO roles that are focused on transformation, you can make that the central theme of your resume and demonstrate how your background, expertise, and skills make you a strong fit for the job.

Highlight any experience you have with helping companies build or transform their data science and analytics strategies. For example, you should include examples of any time you helped implement new data or analytics technologies, assisted in maintaining or building databases, found new insights with data, or informed the overall data and analytics strategy in a past role. It’s important to demonstrate that you know how to successfully support or implement digital transformation, especially as it applies to overall business goals.

Your resume should be a flexible document that you can quickly tweak to fit the job you’re applying for. This might mean highlighting specific skills or adding in relevant expertise that you originally left off your resume. Van Vreede suggests creating a “modular” resume that can be updated to be a custom fit for any job listing.

Your summary should always describe the “value add you bring to the organization as a CDO,” he says. But make sure the summary also includes keywords that align with the job listing. Add in keywords that you haven’t included or if you phrased a skill or accomplishment in a different way, go back into your resume and re-word it. Your experience section can also have a bulleted list of your achievements which can be re-ordered to “prioritize the things that the company seems to care about the most based on the posting,” Van Vreede says.